Movie Review-The Summer of Massacre

Plot-Joe Castro ( Terror Toons 1&2 and Jackhammer Massacre) is trying to break a world record. This film boasts almost 160 onscreen deaths. Thru 4 tales we get to see Castro at his best and worst. Well, not as bad as Terror Toons 2

Review-I am going to break this film down in its 4 chapters and talk about each…

This film has a underlining theme throughout that the world is going to hell. In between stories we get a glimpse into serial killers or our culture dying. And it ranges from the truly odd to almost dismal. Like, he wants us all to blow our brains out cause we are heading for self destruction within hours. To each his own, this film has four stories that like the theme range from the truly fun and original, to almost his version of Machine Girl. ( without the girl, just the fake blood effects)

Chapter 1-Rampage. Chris is just an ordinary guy who one night just goes to the wrong place at the wrong time. Three guys beat him up and cut his face up pretty badly, and leave him for dead. The next day a jogger sees him and suspects he is dead and calls the police and this wakes him up and sets him on a course of killing anyone in his way. From yanking a girls hair off her head and shoving it down her throat to just killing anyone with anything that is around him, this film has no character development or script, it is just killing just for killing sake. This whole 22 minutes, Chris is out for revenge. It gets to a point during this film, where it is not really fun gore, it is just gross to be gross. While I am a fan of this style, to me this was so poorly shot it looked so fake. Now, it did not suck..but it was just so over the top in its approach that you almost wished this story would breathe, let the characters do some of that thing they call acting. This was like a orgasm without sex. Just about 35 death pay offs with no work, or rhyme or reason. All of a sudden a regular man can come out of a beat down and take bullet shots and cannot be stopped. It made no sense. Some of the deaths were ok to a point. This was just non stop video game House of the Dead, stop motion Machine Girl without the fun.

Chapter 2-Lump. Holy shit, was the humor in this film so demented and dark. It was almost like a different film. Lori ( Played by ChromeSkull himself Nick Principe) is a hermiphadite paraplegic, whose body is also wrecked with spinal bifida, fight for her life as her older, beautiful sister tries to murder her. This film just felt like it was taken out of the John Waters old school resume. This is just wrong for the right reasons. From watching her sister push her over the mountain, and she survives to watch her step brother and her sister’s boyfriend also try to kill her. Of course, not only do they fail but the sister is out for revenge. This is where I felt like a good idea got muddied a little bit. More of the fake cgi scenes with blood and effects. This film had so much going for it with the humor and material, that maybe less would have been more. But, the end result was classic. And what about this line…” You dumb cunt” and she looks at him and says do not ever call me ” dumb”. I am just glad this had dialogue and some characters that we really wanted to see get what they got coming. This was just fun. Some of the kills were hokey but as a whole, it was strong enough to keep fans entertained.

Chapter 3-Son of the Boogeyman. This was the weakest of all the entries. It was also the shortest, clocking in a little over 11 minutes we learn, Itâ€™s been 36 years since Jesseâ€™s loving mother was raped by his biological father. Now, after hiding and running their entire lives in fear of this murderous rapist, he re appears to claim what is his. This was just ridiculous, as almost Joe just trying to fill some space in between the entries. And if anyone watches XPW back in it’s heyday the father reminded me a little of Pogo the clown. I absolutely hated this 11 minutes. The son was so boring and when he told the stories to his girlfriend, you almost hoped he would die. Now, when the boogieman catches up with the son’s mom, it is gruesome, but still a bore

Chapter 4-Burn. This one is based off a weird urban legend. Get this one…Michael and Devin were two fire fighter specialists who were secretly gay. When they are found out by their Station, they were burned to death. So now, they are out for revenge and since they killed all the guilty, and family, relatives, lovers and 15 cousins of the perpetrators, now it is anyone who does not pray first before lighting a fire in the woods. I am serious…So a youth retreat is in the woods and 4 stick around to smoke weed and hit on the girl, but one by one they disappear. This was actually the best in terms of gore effects, but the meaning and subject matter may offend a lot of people who are gay. I thought this was Joe attempting to create some controversy and it showed. This was really depressing for a horror short that was supposed to be gore and more gore. Do we really want to see innocent gay people die and then feel they need to kill others to defend their rights that were taken away? I might be reading way too much into this film…but this is what I got out of it.

All in all, I had a somewhat good time with it, if you are into the Machine Girl, Toyko Gore Police and that ilk style..this film may be up your alley somewhat as well.

God was the last shot of this film just so fucking hopeless and depressing for a film that is supposed to be a 1600 mph a hour film. I wish if he wanted it to be serious and thought provoking he would have made it less kills and more story. Or if he wanted to be the bloodbath master not to bog this film down with heavy messages and thoughts. In closing, I have talked to Castro before about 15 plus months ago, and I know he does not give two shits about what any of us think of his film that bloggers are shit and this is just like throwing the dvd out the window.